Trigger warning: panic attack/extreme anxiety at the end

***

I didn't steal any pills on Monday, so on Thursday, I call to hear if I can pop by that evening. Emile replies that his door is open. I wonder if he sees me differently now. I feel different. Raw, as if I'm back on that table and cut open, equally afraid. I've never put my loneliness into words outside my own thoughts and now that I have, it seems more daunting than ever to overcome.

I really am like Prometheus: I only gain to lose. In fact, I may have well lost my liver according to the Greeks since it's the seat of life, the soul, emotions, desire, passion, anger – all things I haven't exactly shown. Aren't vampires undead creatures? How can I have a soul when I am a monster, a sinner that robs his benefactor? The guilt and remorse and loneliness are the regeneration of my life and soul, though they feel more like a degeneration.

We talk and enjoy the silence like usual, but not once do I get the chance to snatch a handful of pills. Emile doesn't go to the bathroom, doesn't leave me alone to grab anything, and by nine o'clock, I'm desperate. I'll have to do this the old-fashioned way and feed. Already every drop of leaden guilt sinks to my stomach. Emile is telling me an anecdote about Aurélie and he just blinks when I lean over and bite.

The familiar bottle is not in the basket but on the microwave. The panic that reared its head dives under the surface again. The bottle is unopened. Dammit. I hoped to take a decent amount because these things are more difficult when I try not to feed off Emile.

"The next words out of your mouth better be "I'm sorry" and "here are the pills" because I don't think you can explain that one."

The bottle glides through my hands, but the cap is still screwed on and nothing scatters. Emile stands in the doorway with crossed arms and a stern set to his face. Shit. Fuck! Why is he not dazed on the couch? I'm going to fall. I put my hands on the counter to stop their trembling and flip out: "I'm sorry!"

"You better be. I'm pretty sure this isn't the first time, so I don't know if I should believe you." Not the first time? Oh God, he knows. I can feel the knife, the pain, the darkness, the void. Phantoms, but more palpable than reality. "And while you're at it, explain to me how exactly you cause those dizziness spells that make me lose a few minutes of my day." That too? Oh God, my Lord Jesus Christ. Breathe. Breathe. I should've prepared for this, crafted a lie, but I only have the truth. The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. If this is the end, if this means another Frankenstein, so be it. Maybe I'll die.

"I bit you. Fed on you."

"I didn't imagine that? I really thought ..." Emile's voice drops and he mutters more for him than for me: "There must be another explanation. A hallucination maybe? Or a dream?" Shit, I could've gone with that. It's probably too late now. And people in a dream don't tell you it's a dream. Do people in a hallucination? I don't know. I've never hallucinated. Wait, I did. Or was that a dream? I don't know. Breathe. Breathe.

"I wish you imagined it." I falter and come up with nothing more to say. How, in the name of all that's holy, do you explain that you're a vampire created by a fourteenth-century, Italian Frankenstein? Emile processes this while staring at the kitchen table and gripping the backrest of the chair. I'm glad for the obstacle and the distance between us. Occasionally, he glances up and studies me. He is the vortex and he drags me down, down, down.

"So what? You have a kink for biting people? You drink blood?!" He scoffs.

"I do. I'm a vampire. That's what I call myself." Down. Breathe.

"What you call yourself? You don't know others like you?"

"No. As far as I know, I'm the only one." Down, down. Breathe. Breathe.

Emile fumbles for words. "So if you're a, a vampire, why the hell have you been taking antiretrovirals from my kitchen?!"

Breathe. "I have HIV. Or I think I do. I did a self-test."

"You have HIV? A vampire?"

"I tested positive. And it makes sense." Down. Breathe.

"And you decided like any reasonable human being that you should steal medication from a stranger on the street and befriend him while you're at it?!"

Lord, have mercy. I can't do this. I'm gonna float away. Or faint. Have a heart attack. Can I have a heart attack? "No, I – "

"Wait. Don't try to explain. I'm going to overload or do something I'm going to regret if you try. I think you should leave." Yes, leave. So I can fall and cry and die. Oh God, I can hardly stand on my legs. I'm going to fall. "Or wait. Can you wait? I'm going to go up and, I don't know, take a shower, and when I can think again, we're going to talk because I won't be able to get a wink of sleep with all these questions in my head, but right now, it's too much of a mess to function properly."

I sit down and the table is cool against my head and I shouldn't sit here like a ... like a child, but it's so heavy and everything looks hazy. I shouldn't sit here. Bad for my neck, my back. But I don't get old. But I do get back pains. Do I? I don't know anymore. I'm spilling over, wet, wet, sweat, hot, cold. No breath.

When I look, the kitchen pulses, grows smaller and bigger, but the table is still the same. We sat at this table. Emile sat on this chair. And Aurélie. She didn't sit on this chair but on the other one. The one Emile gripped.

I should never have stolen his pills. I should have just suffered. It's all I do anyway. Day in, day out. Like Prometheus' liver, but my happiness never regenerates. There's just always more for the eagle to pick away and no Heracles to free me.